I’m in North Carolina now, for the TIP course I mentioned before. Ahhhh, dorm life: I’m living in a cinderblock box that normally houses two undergrads, and boy, do I pity them. This is not what you would call a spacious room.

It’s funny to watch myself fall back into a mode I’ve lived in before, which I tend to think of as “monk-like.” With so few possessions, I become very organized about putting them all away in their places. (You would think that’s a more necessary trait when you have lots of stuff, and you would be right. But I’m better about it when my life is spartan.) I’ll have a very organized schedule, too, including a much earlier bedtime than is my wont. This is how I lived on digs, and much like how I live when I travel, too. It’s a stripped-down existence, with my attention almost entirely focused on what I’m here to do.

Of course, since what I’m here to do is “teach creative writing,” there’s a certain overlap with my normal life. On the way out here, for no apparent reason, one of the short stories I thought I would never actually write stepped up and spat out nearly four hundred words. “Fate, Hope, Friendship, Foe,” the seedlet that for the last nine years has consisted of a set of signs I saw while driving from Dallas up to Bloomington, and the fact that I had a life-sized statue of Atropos in my backseat at the time. Will it turn into a complete story? Who knows. And I have a new idea, too. I don’t know if preparing to teach creative writing flipped a switch in my brain, or if this is the same switch that’s been flipped since early this year, when I found myself itching to write half a dozen short stories instead of the novel I needed to finish.

Anyway, blogging will likely be scarce around here for a while, as I am going to be very busy. But if there’s any cool news to report, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

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